Monkeys

By Ishaan TharoorMonday, July 19, 2010

DLILLC / Corbis

Last week, a report in the Chinese state-run People's Daily newspaper alleged that the Afghan Taliban has begun training monkeys in areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border as part of the struggle against occupying NATO forces. According to the story, the monkeys are sometimes offered bananas and peanuts as "a series of rewards and punishments to gradually teach them how to" fire Kalashnikovs, light machine guns and trench mortars. (Taiwan's Apple Daily has come up with a brilliant computerized animation of these recruitment tactics.) The People's Daily article quotes a number of unnamed, supposedly "inside" sources, including a U.S. official, but NATO spokesmen have since dismissed any knowledge of these so-called "monkey terrorists."